


Alpha of Boone County

by KonekoYasha



Category: Logan Lucky (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alpha Clyde Logan, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Armitage Hux Being An Asshole, F/M, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Past Child Abuse, Power Dynamics, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:13:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KonekoYasha/pseuds/KonekoYasha
Summary: There hasn't been an Alpha in Boone County for decades... until now.





	1. Better Late than Never

**Author's Note:**

> Since there seems to be some interest in me continuing this story, I'll try really hard not be too distracted by other Kylo/Rey plot bunnies and finish this one.

Alpha of Boone County  
Chapter 1: Better Late than Never

 

His mouth was bone dry and he was sure he had a name but the mule that must’a kicked him had knocked it straight outta his head. Or maybe he lost it tumbling down the mountain ‘cause that was the only thing he could think of that would make him hurt this damn bad ALL OVER, but none of that really mattered right now. 

He had to find Her and get safe. There were too many people NOT her around. Too many burning smells and liquid tar coating every sense; his tongue was sandpaper and the air felt like mud suffocating him under its weight. He tried to open his eyes, but they were glued shut or sumpten, and his right arm wouldn’t move more than a few inches and the left wouldn’t move a’tall. 

“He’s coming up again,” a soft voice he felt he should know said in a mild panic. He didn’t like the way the anguished voice was like acid down his throat, but that had to come secondary to finding Her.

“Now Clyde, ya gotta stay calm. You ain’t helpin’ nutten by pitching a fit like this.”

Clyde. He was Clyde, and he had to get outta here and he didn’t appreciate much for this male tellin’ him what to do. The growl startled him at first, then he realized it was coming from him.

“Dammnit, Clyde!” the first voice said, the once soft voice raising in volume to somethin’ that most would take note not to cross. “They cain’t give you any more drugs and you keep breathin’. You gotta stay down!”

It was the genuine fear in her voice that got his eyes unstuck. He couldn’t abide it being on his account. The face that came into view was purdy and sad and Clyde felt real upset that she had ruined her makeup with cryin’ over him. That kinda thing shouldn’t happen.

“ ‘Em sorry,” he croaked out, though he won’t sure why he was sorry exactly, but he knew he was. This was his fault, he was sure.

“Well, at least he’s makin’ more sense.”

Clyde slid his gaze over and growled at the male again, the sound being reflexive but most assuredly intentional now.

“Now don’t start that again! It’s me Clyde, Jimmy, your brother. I’m not tryin’ to do nutten but help.”

Clyde ignored him for now knowing the truth when he heard it. He looked down at his right wrist, his head bobin’ like a doll on a dashboard and took in the padded restraint there. Clyde then looked over to his left and found his arm completely gone. For a moment he was back in Iraq and feared that he had only imagined havin’ somethin’ left after the explosion. Slowly he realized that he did still have his left arm, minus a hand, but it was fastened to his side and chest with a mess of bandages and straps, completely immobile.

Clyde didn’t bother looking before yanking with all his might against the restraint on his right wrist. He heard it tare, but it hadn’t come loose yet.

“Shit!”

The male claiming to be his brother leapt to hold the arm down while the lady put all her slight weight against his left shoulder tryin’ to keep it flat to the head of the bed. She slid across the floor as he sat up proper in the semi reclined bed, her efforts not amounting to much to stop him.

“Please Clyde!” she cried out, tears running more mascara down her cheeks.

Knowing she posed no threat or real hindrance to him leavin’, Clyde refocused on the male and glared into his frightened face. 

“Git outta m’ way,” he snarled lowly, his accent slipping even further with emotion into Mommy’s high mountain. The male cut his eyes to the side and offered his neck as he should but didn’t let go of the forearm.

“They are gonna shoot you if you go after her again,” the male intreated. His distress a heavy weight against Clyde’s will, but he had a deeper call he couldn’t ignore. These two could take care of themselves, they always had and always would. Clyde didn’t get a chance to force the male’s full submission before a heavenly voice skimmed down his spine.

“You must be having a laugh if you think you are going to keep me from him.”

Closer… Closer… She was coming closer… He couldn’t smell Her yet, but he could feel it in his bones. 

“Ma’am, it’s for your own protection.”

Protection? His blood froze. What had happened? What was happenin’? She needed him and he was stuck here! 

With a roar, Clyde yanked, his arm came free and the male came with it, tumbling over the bed to land on floor on the other side. When Clyde tried to swing his feet outta the bed, he found they wouldn’t move for the belts across his thighs and the buckles at his ankles holdin’ him in place.

The door crashed open so forcefully it bounced off the wall to almost go fully closed again, but the Avenging Angel slammed the heal of Her hand into it to stop it. The Hell’s fury rolling off Her made him whine from deep inside his soul, prayin’ She weren’t mad at him. She was so, so displeased and it tore him clean up. It wasn’t right for her to be anything but smilin’, and happy, and purrin’ in contentment, and it dripped poison down his throat to know She was plum pissed.

“What the bollocks is this shite?!” she demanded, and Clyde tried real hard come up with somethin’ but an unwelcome female that had followed his Angel in, beating him to it.

“Ma’am, he’s under arrest. He attacked you in public, attempted a forced mating, he’s unregistered, he assaulted twenty officers, and some haven’t regained consciences yet.”

Clyde whined again louder in subjugation. He’d done bad, and he didn’t want Her upset with him. “’Em sorry.”

His Angel snatched up his now freed hand and forced his fingers into the hair at the back of Her neck before She started shushin’ him.

“Shh, it’s alright. See, I’m right here. I’m alright.”

She wasn’t mad at him, and that was good enough for Clyde, the rest he’d fix later. He found a curl at Her nape and started alternating between curling it around his finger and pulling it straight. He had a hard time looking away from where they touched, but he saw Her smile and realized She was as pretty as She smelled, maybe even prettier.

“Ma’am you required stitches and lost a lot a blood.”

“Because those bleeding idiots tried to separate us! He reacted instinctively. He did not know what he was doing.”

Clyde growled deep at the idea of being separated and Her obvious displeasure at the idea. His hold on Her neck went tight as he steered Her to crawl up onto the bed and onto his lap, pressing Her to lay across his chest. Without the use of his other arm this was the best he could do right now.

“Ma’am you’re not allowed to…”

“I. Am. His. Mate.”

Clyde’s bones went liquid at Her declaration. He liked that, he really, really like that idea. He wondered drunkenly how She like her bacon, or books, or sunrises, or Fairs, or…

“Actually Ma’am…”

“I think it’s high time for you to git up outta here,” the first female said, no longer sad, but fierce. Clyde thought he might take a likin’ to her if she could get rid of the offendin’ female that threatened to take his Angel. ‘Sides he needed the backup right now being more one armed than normal.

Clyde spared enough attention to see the female, along with the brother/male advanced on the intruder, pushing her back until the door could be shut in her protesting face. The brother/male noisily pulled a chair in front of the door and plopped down into it before slumpin’ forward to put his face in his hands.

“Gawd, Clyde. I’m startin’ to come around to your way of thinking about that curse.”

Curse? What curse? He was completely content with the current situation. Clyde went back to ignorin’ the brother/male in favor of burying his nose into the hair a’top his Angel’s head. Her scent was clean and strong there. 

“So… you’re Sadie’s dance teacher?”

The bells of laughter from his Angel in response to the acceptable female sank into his skin and Clyde melted back into the mattress tucking his girl into his right side. Though She wasn’t in his lap any more, he liked that all of Her was against him with his arm locking Her in place.

“Yes, sort of. It’s one of the activities we do together to help calm her. I’m Rey by the way.” Her hand lifted away to wave, and Clyde hummed happily when it returned to his stomach.

“Mellie, and this here is our brother Jimmy,” the acceptable female drawled, her returned calm soothing him more.

“Ma’am.”

Clyde growled in soft warning at the brother/male for introducing himself to his girl, though it was only a reflex at this point.

“Lord, is it always gonna be like this?” the brother/male asked exasperated, his gestures wild, but Clyde was happy to see he didn’t leave his post guarding the door.

“No, no, this is a singularly unique situation and I’m sure if things had had been different, we wouldn’t be in our current, unfortunate situation. It’s quite remarkable that so many things had to go wrong for this to happen. Presenting so late as an Alpha in a place he couldn’t feel safe and meeting a potential mate all at once. It’s really no wonder he had a paddy about it.”

Clyde didn’t really understand what She was talkin’ about, but he did like hearing Her say it. Especially when her breath ghosted across his collarbone and Her accent curled in his ears. 

“I do feel badly about it. I was probably the catalyst for all of this, and I don’t even know his name.”

“ ‘m Clyde,” he drawled happy to finally have something to give her. “ ‘n you’re Rey.”

“That’s right,” his Rey told him, the smile clear in her voice. She shifted to come up on her knees beside him. He didn’t like it much, but she just took his wrist in both her hands when he tried to tuck her back where she belonged.

“Shh,” Rey shushed him as she unbuckled what was left of the restraint from his wrist. She scowled looking at the deep blue-black banding underneath. He didn’t like the frown, so he reached out to wipe the troubled look from her lips with his thumb. She smiled brightly and he really like that, then she leaned in and kissed the inside of his wrist over the worse of the bruise with that smile and Clyde really, really like that and smiled in return.

“Do you know what they gave him?” his Rey asked as she reached out to his chest. The site of her tiny hands on him took over his brain and he just enjoyed resting his chin on his chest and watched as she worked the fastenings to the straps holding his left arm immobile. It was so soothing how her dainty little fingers moved so precisely. 

“No Ma’am. After they tranqed him at the pageant they wouldn’t let us no where near him. And once he was here, they just kept shootin’ him up every time he woke even a little,” the Mellie/female said and Clyde tilted his head trying to dislodge the memory he almost could see.

“Are either of you an executor to his will or listed as a legal emergency contact so we can get his records?” His Rey had finished with the straps and started tugging at the bandages that had been underneath. “Clyde? Can you sit up for me?”

He sat up immediately almost giddy to fulfill her first request of him, ‘specially when she used his name. A coiled need tighten inside of him waiting for her next demand he could satisfy. He’d do anything to see her smile.

“Cain’t you get ‘em? You being his mate and all?” the brother/male asked and Clyde preened with the knowledge that the other male knew who she belonged to. His Rey paused in unwinding the bandages and her distress burned like bleach in his nose.

“Well, that the thing. We’re not actually mated.”

The panic was suffocating. She was rejecting him. She didn’t want him. Air rushed in and out of his lungs at a dizzying pace. His fingers wrapped themselves in her hair.

“Clyde! Clyde!” Rey/ not his Rey called to him. That was good, right? That meant somthin’, right? He just had to convince her he was good enough; the hand thing didn’t mean nothin’. He could do for her, he’d done for Mommy and Mel and Jimmy. Clyde pulled Rey to him, making her bend and twist until the back of her neck and shoulder were within reach of his mouth.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

It wasn’t Jimmy’s exclamation that stopped him. It was the series of overlapping, slightly oval shaped bruises that he could see at the edge of her collar.

Wisps of memories assaulted him.  
Going to Sadie’s pageant.  
Feeling a madding itch under his skin and in his throat.  
Hugging his niece and reeling over a scent that wasn’t her’s in her hair.  
His vison tunneling on a slender woman –Rey- that came to pull on Sadie’s pigtail.  
Rey smiled up at him and the room became too crowded, too loud, too EVERYTHING.  
Out, Now, Safe his only thoughts lifting Her up against his chest and runnin’.  
Then they were in a dark place, his back against the wall to face the door.  
Rey stroking his face and neck, her voice drowned out by the noises just beyond the door.  
Then the handle rattled and pounding from the other side.  
He roared, and Rey turned from him, her shout almost as loud as his.  
She lifted her hand for the handle, and he snatched her back to safety.  
His mouth searching for the spot he knew was there, hidden.  
Rey pleading, her arms trapped to her sides by his.  
The pounding got worse; he dragged them to the ground back into a corner.  
The door banged open; he switched them; her into the corner him covering her completely.  
He spit, snarled, growled, and held on tighter as hands pulled and beat at him.  
Rey cried out, the smell of blood, and then white.

His world suddenly took on a clarity that had been absent until now. Clyde’s hand shook as he untangled himself from her chestnut hair so that he could pull her collar away. It was even worse than he thought. The skin hadn’t been broken, but obviously not due to lack of effort. Bruising bites littered Rey’s back, shoulder to shoulder, up her neck and down her spine to disappear below the collar.

Clyde pulled away horrified. He had done that. HE had done that to HER! He pushed Rey away gently and moved back from her as far as the bed and the leg restraints would allow.

“Clyde it’s alright,” Rey soothed, her hands cupping his face.

“What else?” he croaked out knowing that couldn’t have been all. It didn’t explain the blood he remembered.

“Clyde, you were under a tremendous amount of…” He pushed the soothing hands away.

“What. Else.” He bit out making eye contact for the first time and holding her hazel eyes until she submitted and pulled her gaze away.

She didn’t answer verbally, just pulled up her right sleeve showing five long lines of bruises wrapping around her upper arm and shoulder and he instantly knew that had caused it; his mechanical hand. A cold fury that he could only direct at himself was swallowing him, and he still hadn’t found the source of the blood.

“What else?”

“Clyde, don’t,” Mellie whispered as she tried to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he shook her off.

Rey didn’t look up; just pulled up the hem of the hospital gown he just now realized she was wearing. Her left thigh colored with crisscrossing blue-black lines. A single stitch where the tips of the aluminum fingers must have pierced her delicate skin, but one stood out from the rest. 

On the inside of her pale thigh, painted in pain he had given her, was surgical drain he had seen too many times during his deployment. A drainage tube for a wound too deep and too jagged to be sutured safely to prevent infection and heal property.

“That’s it,” Rey whispered looking up at him through the fall of her hair.

“Maybe you should go back to your room Ma’am,” Jimmy said softly and everything in Clyde rebelled at the thought of her leaving. Shame flooded him knowing that even when faced with all the harm he’d done, he still had to fist his hand in the bed sheets to keep from grabbing her to him, forcing her to stay with him.

“Go.” He saw Rey flinch, but she didn’t move from where she knelt beside him. “I said git!” he barked, but Rey only squared her shoulders, challenging his command directly.

“No.”

“Mel, get her outta ‘ere,” he demanded. When Mellie reached for her, Rey shrugged his sister off and went one step further by straddling his strapped down thighs.

“No.”

Clyde growled in warning and Rey only smiled in return. She radiated a strange mix of calm/intensity that battered against his self-loathing and shame, but if she thought she could out stubborn him, she didn’t know a Logan worth spit.

“Beggin’ your pardon Ma’am, but I don’t think Clyde can do this right now,” Jimmy reasoned and Clyde didn’t know if he was pissed or relieved for his meddlin’.

“Look, I get this is the very last thing any of you thought would be happening today, but we have to deal with this before the authorities come to take Clyde to jail.”

“I deserve it,” Clyde gritted out, the memory of her injuries chocking him.

“No, you do not.” The conviction in her voice gave more weight to her stare and Clyde was forced to look away. Rey sighed deep before going on. “Didn’t any of you ever get typed when you were younger?”

“Like our blood?” Mellie asked.

“No, Designation Typed like Alpha, Beta, Omega, or neutral,” Rey continued.

“No, Ma’am round these parts you just let things happen natural. No sense wasting money on. ‘Sides there ain’t been an Alpha or Omega in Boone County since before the coal mines started,” Jimmy answered.

“What about old Henry?” Mellie asked.

“Naw, he was just regular mean.”

“Well, while I found that statistically hard to believe, I can assure you Boone County has one now,” Rey told them, leaving no room for argument. 

“I don’t get it. Wouldn’t the military have figured that out when you went in Clyde?”

Clyde shrugged more concerned with keeping his hand to himself while Rey continued to have an almost normal conversation with his sister, like she was at the salon instead of straddling him and being to warm and smellin’ so good. At this point he had wrapped his wrist and fist in the top sheet so tightly in an effort to be good, his fingers had gone numb.

“That is neither here nor there. Right now, we need to concentrate on making all of this not look like an assault.”

“But it was,” Clyde spit out feeling the sheet rip with another twist. The instinct to protect her with his presence warred with protecting her from himself.

Rey didn’t protest, but what she did do was far, far worse. She scooted forward and when he put up his newly freed left forearm in a panic to stop her, she just placed her warm, soft hands on it and pressed it down until it lay in her lap. Clyde felt himself start to hyperventilate, but she kept her hold firm and leaned forward until her forehead was resting against his chin. His eyes crossed, then closed when she rubbed back and forth ruffling the rough goatee there before continuing along his jaw until she was tucked in against his neck, cheek flat against his skin and nose nuzzling his throat.

The faster he huffed, the more of her calm he breathed in. It settled over him like a blanket, wrapping him in cotton fluff until he lay lax under Rey, his hand coming to rest on her knee because he didn’t have the strength of will to raise it higher.

A fog of rightness, peace, and contentment dragged him down into a doze. He made half of an attempt to follow the conversation around him (something about blood tests, like a whole county or sumthin’), but before long the doze deepened into true slumber and Clyde didn’t try and fight it.


	2. The Assessor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Logan siblings are going to need help to get out of this mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of Stormpilot

Alpha of Boone County  
Chapter 2: The Assessor

Jimmy Logan tugged at the knot of his tie not sure if he was trying to loosen, tighten, or straighten it, but he had to do somethin’. The room they were holding Clyde in was small buy anyone’s reckonin’, and it was made even smaller with the huge metal table taking up most of the walking room. 

Clyde sat at the head of the table, farthest from the door and Mellie had wedged herself between the table and the wall to Clyde’s left pretty much ‘cause she was the only one of them that would fit. Jimmy had chosen to sit at the other end of the table from his brother, his chair turned sideways so that he could see the door, the TV mounted in the corner next to it, and Clyde.

The silence stretched tight, and Jimmy’s good knee started to bounce with agitation. It had been a week since the incident at the pageant and four days since Clyde woke up from whatever kinda’ Alpha/Omega coma thing Rey had put him in, and it had been the last time his little brother had said a single word. 

Clyde had asked after Rey first thing when he woke up, and when Mellie had shaken her head, Clyde had turned to face the wall and never piped up again. Even when the lawyer had come, a fella by the name of Dameron, Clyde had done little more than puff up a little and sit up straighter in the bed until Dameron had told them he was, technically Rey’s lawyer. After that, Clyde had slipped into a kinda’ of emptiness that froze Jimmy’s insides.

This wasn’t like when Clyde had been sent down to Juvie. Then his baby brother had just stoically accepted that he had been left to take the heat for his big brother that should have been protecting him, not the other way around. Clyde had been 13, but Jimmy had been 16 and Jimmy would have likely been charged as an adult. Clyde never spoke a word about what had really happened, not a single one, during the six months he had been hold up in that place. When he’d come back, Clyde had been even quieter than he had been when he left, like some kinda’ wall had been built around him that no one, not even their Mommy could get around.

This wasn’t like the Speedway heist. Jimmy had known damn well that Clyde hadn’t approved of it, but at the time all he could think about was never getting’ to see Sadie again, and Jimmy knew, knew like he knew his own name, that the _only_ real reason Clyde went along with it was for him and Sadie. His baby brother had given so much; to his country, to him, to their Mommy when the time came, just kept on given, taking care of them the best he could. 

Of all of them, Clyde was the only one that had ever held an actual steady job. He hand been the one that had put Mellie through the beauty school she had wanted. It had been him that had paid for the medicine that kept their Mommy outta pain until the end. And when the time came, it had been Clyde that had taken care of the arrangements to put her next to Daddy.

Jimmy hadn’t begrudged his brother much when he had enlisted once Mommy died. Sure, it had hurt. He had felt lost without Clyde’s steadfast presence around Danville. Clyde made life make sense, even when he’d go off about the Curse and shit. Just about everyone had come askin’ after him once he’d deployed. And when he had come back the second time on medical discharge, no one knew what to say, especially him. But Clyde had picked himself up, muscled through, learned how to redo fucking _everything_ with the one hand, and damn if he didn’t just stand tall despite everything.

But now… Now everything was different.

Now his baby brother sat there, waitin’… no _**hoping**_ for the punishment that would ruin his life. Jimmy had never realized how sheltered they had been, up in the hills of West Virginia. Not until he had learned that if Clyde was convicted as an aggressive, unregistered Alpha, he would be, at best, chemically castrated; at worst, imprisoned in solitary for years until deemed presentable to polite society. 

He sort of understood what was happenin’. At Rey’s insistence, he and Mellie had researched as best they could, about the Alpha/Beta/Omega thing. He and Mel had even been Typed in hopes of figuring out what was happening, and how they could help. As it turned out, he tested Beta and Mellie was neutral which went a long way in Jimmy’s mind to explain why Mellie was acting normal (or as normal as one could in this situation) while he was loosin’ his shit seeing Clyde like this.

It just wasn’t right! Clyde had never done nothin’ that hurt no one his whole life. Even in Iraq, he never took up arms. He just kept the boys in line and on point and took care of them when they came in more broken than whole. There were more than just a few that had come to Danville in Boone County looking for Clyde, wanting to thank him, wanting to make sure he was ok.

Jimmy knew his brother didn’t deserve this. He was always the first one to volunteer. He was always the one the old church ladies went to when they needed somethin’. He was the one that all the old fogies went to for a little bit of piece of mind as they drank their troubles away. Jimmy just didn’t know what Boone County would do without Clyde around.

A knock at the door brought Jimmy to his feet. He immediately placed himself between it and Clyde when the person didn’t wait for an answer before entering. The man was his height and build, and in better shape since Jimmy had to admit that he had let himself go a bit once his knee gave out. He was well dressed in a clean, crisp grey suit, and his bright smile seemed to gleam pure white against his flawless, smooth dark complexion. The new comer softly closed the door behind him, before offering his hand.

“Hello, you must be Jimmy.” If possible, the smile grew warmer when Jimmy took the offered greeting, shaking the man’s hand making Jimmy feel instantly more relaxed.

“My name is Finn,” he continued, offering his hand to Mel next. His sister took it lightly. Her narrowed eyes critical and assessing. 

Jimmy saw Finn’s smile shift into something more somber when the approached Clyde. He put his hand towards his brother, despite Clyde not acknowledging him.

“Rey sent me.”

For the first time in four days, Clyde reacted. He turned his focus on Finn, and Jimmy almost buckled under the waves of somethin’ coming off his little brother even though Clyde’s expression had hardly changed at all. 

Finn _did_ sway, his proffered hand going to the back of the nearest chair to steady himself.

“Whoa, she wasn’t kidding,” Finn gasped, giving his head a shake.

“You alright?” Mellie asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Finn said with a small smile. “I’m way out of practice being around a new Alpha. That’s really Rey’s forte, but she thinks I can help, so here I am.”

“How…” Clyde started to say then cut himself off. His struggle to control himself painfully obvious.

Finn shrugged off his jacket and draped it on the back of the chair he had used to steady himself before pulling it away from the table.

“May I?” he asked and something about Clyde seemed to unclench a little. Jimmy knew him well enough to see the confusion that creased his brother’s brow and he could understand why. Here was this well to do man asking for a backwoods nobody’s permission, for… well anything.

“Please?”

Clyde immediately nodded at Finn’s slight plea and Jimmy felt himself relax. Finn sat down, his grin smooth and comforting as he took the seat.

“As for your questions,” Finn started, placing his softly folded hands within Clyde’s reach. “Rey is…” the man chuckled, “let’s just be honest, she’s spittin’ mad and the prosecution will be lucky to make it out of that courtroom with their hide intact. But as for the rest, she’s healing well. Faster than the doctors were expecting.”

Finn turn and retrieved an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. With a jovial smile he slid it under Clyde’s tapping fingers.

“Rey figured you’d have a hard time believing me, so she sent her medical records for you to see, and she told me to tell you, and I quote, ‘Tell him to hush and listen to his sister’.”

“Mellie? Why not me?”

Finn snorted a laugh, “You’re joking, right? I’ve known you for like five minutes and even I can see that when push comes to shove, you’d let him wallow in his Alpha self-flagellation.” 

Jimmy crossed his arms and chewed on the inside of his cheek, annoyed at being called out.

“You won’t be able to help it now that he’s presented,” Finn continued diplomatically. “You might be the older brother, but he’s your Alpha, and what he says goes in the end. Mellie being neutral means she won’t be effected by his currently out of control hormones and pheromones and being family he’s more likely to listen to her than a stranger.”

Mellie shot him a look he knew too well, the one that screamed that she wasn’t gonna’ not bring up every chance she could that his baby sister had a leg up on him in somethin’.

Finn turned back to Clyde. “Back to your questions Clyde. As to how I know Rey, we met in college. We both majored in Designation Dynamics. Her focus was therapy and mine was Corporate Communications.”

“Wait? Corporate what now?” Jimmy had to ask. “And when did Clyde ask a question?”

“Well, the short version is that Clyde is a very…” Finn paused, obviously looking for the right words to say, “ _potent_ Alpha. And he’s already imprinted on Rey. Until he attains a better understanding of what’s happening to him, he’s going to be laser focused on her. All his questions will revolve around Rey, first about her health.” 

Finn pointed to the medical files that Clyde had removed from the envelope and had been looking through while Finn had been talking. Clyde looked mildly embarrassed about being called out about it, but Jimmy didn’t miss how his brother clutched the papers tighter and brought them closer to his chest as if to make sure they wouldn’t be taken away.

“The next thing an imprinted Alpha will obsess about is who is interacting with the one they’ve imprinted on, especially when they aren’t there.” Finn chuckled and held up his hands and shrugged his shoulders. 

“Even though I’m an Omega, and a pretty low treat as far as Alpha instincts are concerned, I’m still a male that knows Rey, and I’ve been around her when he hasn’t been able to, AND we have a history, so it’s best to very clearly define what my and Rey’s relationship is to head off any… uninhibited reactions.”

“So, Clyde is actin’ like this because he’s imprinted? Like a baby duck?” Mellie asked, clearly as confused as Jimmy felt right now. While the image of Clyde waddling behind the tiny little Rey like a duckling was kinda amusing, it kinda also seemed to fit his gentle nature too.

“Well, no, not like a duck.” Finn admitted, squirming under the intensity of the look Clyde was giving him, and suddenly Jimmy understood. 

This was why the law considered Clyde a danger. The way Finn had almost buckled when Clyde reacted to the mention of Rey’s name, the way Finn was reacting now even though his brother wasn’t saying or doing anything; hell, the way HE had reacted to Clyde’s outbursts at the hospital; without even trying, or even being aware of it, his brother was influencing them, manipulating them.

“As for Corporate Communications,” Finn continued, and the tension in the room evaporated as if it hadn’t been there at all. “It’s the field of assessing when business deals stop being about the company and start being about Designation expression, Alpha posturing. The higher up the latter you go, the more Alphas you tend to have, and when you crowd them together like that, it can get out of hand very quickly.”

“Is that what you’re doin’ now?” Clyde asked, his voice rough with disuse, “Assessin’?”

“Rey said I wouldn’t be able to pull one over on you. Yes, I’m here under a professional compacity. I’ll be here while you watch the trial and at the end, I’ll report to the court my findings.”

“Ain’t that a conflict of interests or something’? You bein’ Rey’s friend and all?” Mellie asked, her own assessing look going cold.

“Most definitely,” Finn said without hesitation, and Jimmy felt his hackles rise at the clear danger Finn now posed to his brother. “But if I, someone that would quite literally do anything for my friend, protect her from any threat, even one she may be blinded too, finds Clyde ‘At No Fault’ in this, it will carry more weight than a court appointed Assessor.”

 

“You _do_ have the right to ask for a different Assessor,” Finn held up his hand to stop his sister when Mellie opened her mouth. No doubt ready to do just that. “ _But_ I’ve met the DA in this case and he’s a class A Alpha prick. The kind that these kinds of laws are truly meant for, and if you let his office choose for you, I can guarantee you Clyde will be castrated _and_ in prison before dinner.”

The air pretty much left the room at that point and Jimmy felt panic start to creep in as the very real possibility that his little brother would be irreparably punished for something that had been just an uncontrollable reaction. 

He was the oldest, Goddamn it! He should have done something! He should have been there! This was all his fault for not looking out of Clyde like he outta, and his gentle little brother was gonna pay the price for it.

Looking up, Jimmy saw Mellie’s pleading eyes, the tears already beginning to gather. Clyde moved so that despite the chain that was fixed his wrist to the table, he could hold their baby sister’s hand.

“Look, I’ll be honest,” Finn began, glancing down at his own hands before looking at where sister and brother held tight to one another. 

“After I saw the pictures the prosecution is going to present, I was ready to send you up the river too. But Rey…” he paused and laughed quietly, shaking his head all the while. Finn reached out and placed his hand on top of Mel’s and Clyde’s.

“She believes in you, almost blindly, and given her past…”, pausing again, Finn looked up to the only window in the room. 

“Let’s just say she may be more than just a little bit biased in this, but after Poe started putting your case together, and after meeting you,” Finn smiled broadly before looking back at Clyde. “I don’t think she’s wrong.”

“You’ll do what’s best?” Clyde asked, his voice dark, heavy and serious. “No matter what?”

“No matter what,” Finn agreed, holding his brother’s intense gaze unwavering. “Even if she hates me for it.”

“Then you stay,” Clyde proclaimed, and Jimmy knew there was no arguing a different point after that.

“Good, because I’m pretty sure if you refused, she’d be in here in a nanosecond beating both our heads together,” Finn quipped despite Clyde’s stern frown.

The knock at the door made all of them jump in their seats. Clyde growled lowly, only quieting when Finn softly told him to ‘Steady’, though his posture remained ridged.

Jimmy got up and opened the door to find a court official (he thought her name may have been Kaydel) standing there.

“They’re ready to start Mr. Logan,” she said, reaching past him to turn on the TV next to the door. 

The screen came to life showing a mostly empty courtroom save for the redheaded prosecutor and the defending attorney, Poe Dameron.

“Is he gonna’ do what’s right too?” Clyde asked, his focus solely on the screen.

“Poe?” Finn asked. “If anyone needed convincing this was a just cause, it was Poe. He grew up as an Alpha under another Alpha’s abuse. He would never let Rey’s guilt override her safety.”

Clyde started to hyperventilate then, and Mellie let out a squeal as Clyde started to grip her hand tighter. 

“Hey, hey!” Finn entreated, trying to pry his brother’s fingers from around Mellie’s. “Poe’s o.k. He’s just looking out for her for my sake.” When Clyde didn’t let up, Finn shouted.

“He’s doing this as a favor to me! I mean, he wants to help Rey because they have a similar history, but he’s not interested in her as a mate.”

“Bullshit,” Clyde growled only to snap his head back when Finn shouted.

“Poe’s gay!” Despite his dark completion, Finn’s cheeks started to darken with a blush as he rambled, “We’re kind of, sort of together.”

Jimmy watched his brother go from junkyard dog mad, to thoughtful, to pissed in two seconds flat.

“Kinda, sorta?” Clyde growled louder than he had before, making Kaydel jump and whimper. “He ain’t declared himself!?”

Suddenly the atmosphere in the room shifted and Finn barked out a laugh of pure surprise, grinning ear to ear. 

“She really wasn’t joking,” he said in childlike wonder, Finn’s hands came up to cover his face. “You’re a True Alpha.”

The three siblings looked at each other not understanding what THAT was supposed to mean, but Kaydel didn’t give them any time to question it.

“The trial is going to start any minute now,” she said, now looking at Clyde with a little bit of awe. 

“Go,” Finn told him, but Jimmy still hesitated. “The best way to help your brother is to be on that witness stand.”

Jimmy waited until Clyde gave him a tiny little nod before following Kaydel to the courtroom only slightly relieved that at least Finn seemed to be on there side.

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, Comments and Kudos help keep me focused and hopefully together we can get this thing done!


End file.
